Steps for Effective Communication

Clarity in idea.

The communicator should be quite clear about what he wants to communicate. Communication is a process starting with ideation, which includes generation of ideas, which are meant, for communication. This is the subject matter of communication and may include opinion, attitudes, feeling, views suggestion orders etc.

Purpose of Communication

Every communication has some purpose, the basic purpose of any communication being to get behavioural response from the receiver of the communication. However the ultimate objective may be extended further.

Empathy in Communication

The way for effective communication is to be sensitive towards receivers needs, feeling and perception. This is what psychologist called empathy in communication. When the sender of message looks at the problems from the receiver point of view, much of misunderstanding is avoided.

Two Way Communications

Communication is a two way process and this fact must be realized in communication. Two-way communication brings two minds together which is the basic core of any communication. It involves a continuous dialogue between the sender and the receiver of the message. Upward communication becomes a reality in the organization if this fact is recognized.

Appropriate Language

The subject matter of communication is transmitted by decoding into some symbols. Such symbols may be in the form of words, either spoken or written and gestures. If the words are used, the language used for communication should be such which is understandable by the receiver. Technical terminology and jargons though impressive creates trouble to the listener. One way of making communication simple is to use repetitive language, which the receiver is familiar with.

Supporting Words with Action

It is often said that action speaks louder than words. While communicating the sender may use the actions to emphasis a point. This enhances understanding as well as emphasis the important point in communication. Further the sender of message must also follow in action what he says to others. This will ensure seriousness in communication/

Credibility in Communication

One criterion for effective managerial communication is that it has credibility or believability. The subordinates obey the orders of the superior because he has demonstrated through his competence that he is worth of trust. He must also maintain his trust and credibility. Subordinates will follow thus any communication, which is based on this trust and credibility.

Good Listening

A communicator must be a good listener too. By this process he is not only giving chance to other to speak but he gathers useful information for further communication. By concentration on the speaker’s explicit and implicit meaning the manager can obtain a much better understanding of what is being said.

Qualities of a Leader

Leadership means the ability to influence the behaviour of others hence a leader should have certain traits to be able to exert his influence on the group around him. Leadership qualities can be divided into two classes.

1.     Personal traits

2.     Managerial traits

Personal Traits

            A successful leader should have the following personal qualities.

Dynamic Personality

            A leader should possess a charismatic, charming, cheerful and bubbling personality. He should have vitality. He should be strong, have good health, and have a cool temperament and an optimistic outlook. His behaviour should be decent and he should be able to communicate clearly.

Intellectual Capacity

            A leader should be able to think scientifically and logically. He should be able to analyse a situation. He should be able to interpret both data and human behaviour clearly and concisely. He should have an insight into business problems.

Initiative

            A successful leader must be able to visualize and take a correct sequence of actions. He should have a good sense of timing. He should be able to apply intrinsic ideas. He should be able to develop new ideas and formulate new methods of doing things. He should have great creative ability and initiative. He should be able to inspire teach and guide people. Only then will he get the voluntary co-operation of the employees around him.

Foresight

            A successful leader should be imaginative. He should be able to visualize potential trends and on the basis of these develop polices and programs logically.

Emotional Stability

            A leader should have a balanced temperament. He should be emotionally stable. He should be able to overcome his own personal disappointments. He should also be able to correct his won inconsistencies.

Flexibility

            A leader should be flexible and have an open mind. But the final decision should be his and should be based on various inputs, which should reach a balance in the final decision. He must always try to accommodate as many points of view as possible.

Sense of Responsibility

            A leader must always be responsible for his actions. He should bear the burden of his decisions. He should not try to escape by putting them on somebody else. He should always remember,

1. That he derives his authority from his followers and
2. Authority and responsibility are inter linked.

Character

            A leader should be a man of great character. He should always remember that he is a symbol for his followers hence he must carefully consider the effects of his actions on grounds of morality and efficiency.

Managerial Traits

            A successful leader should possess the following managerial trait.

Technical Knowledge

            A leader should know the technical details necessary in his field. He should know them minutely and be able to apply them in hands on situation. Only then will his followers respect him. A leader who instructs but cannot do will never be respected.

Organizing ability

            The main aim of every leader is to organize what others are doing. To be able to do this he should be able to divide the organisation into segments and use his technical knowledge and knowledge of his followers’ capacity to divide work, allocate responsibility, direct the action, set goals and produce results. He should be able to bring together the money, materials, men and machines.

Ability to deal with people

            A leader should be able to deal with the behaviour of his followers under normal conditions and in emotionally stressed conditions. He has to inspire and motivate people in both the situations

Ability to judge and decide promptly

            A leader should use all the abilities mentioned above to judge both people and situations. He should also be able to act decisively promptly and effectively so that the organization benefits from his decision with the minimum amount of effort for his followers.

Influencing - Characteristics That Differentiate Leaders From Non-Leaders

There are three categories of leadership theories which highlight the key determinants of leadership effectiveness. They are Trait Theories, Behavioral Theories and Situational Theories.

Trait Theories:

There are six traits associated with effective leadership include drive, the desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, intelligence and job-relevant knowledge.

Drive: Leaders exhibit a high effort level. They have a relatively high desire for achievement, they are ambitious, they have a lot of energy, they are tirelessly persistent in their activities and they show initiative.

Desire to lead: Leaders have a strong desire to influence and lead others. They demonstrate the willingness to take responsibility

Honesty and Integrity: Leaders build trusting relationship between themselves and followers by being truthful and non-deceitful and by showing high consistency between word and deed.

Self-confidence: Followers look to leaders for an absence of self-doubt. Leaders therefore need to show self-confidence in order to convince followers of the rightness of goals and decisions.

Intelligence: Leaders need to be intelligent enough to gather synthesize and interpret large amounts of information; and to be able to create vision, solve problems and make correct decision.

Job-relevant knowledge: Effective leaders have a high degree of knowledge about the company, the industry and technical matters. In-depth knowledge allows leaders to make well-informed decision and to understand the implications of those decisions.

Behavioral Theories:

They identified behaviors that differentiated effective leaders’ from ineffective leaders. Based on these people could be trained to be leaders. The following are three types of behavioral styles of leadership

i) Autocratic Style: A leader who tended to centralize authority, dictate work methods, make unilateral decision and limit employee participation

ii) Democratic Style: A leader who tended to involve employees in decision making to delegate authority, to encourage participation in deciding work methods and goals, and to use feedback as an opportunity for coaching employees

iii) Laissez-faire style: A leader who generally gave the group complete freedom to make decision and complete the work in whatever way it saw fit.

Research results revealed that employee-oriented leaders were associated with high group productivity and higher job satisfaction. Leaders who exhibited high level of consideration and high level of task orientation achieved high subordinate performance and satisfaction. Some studies reported that democratic style of leadership was most effective, although later studies showed mixed results

Situational Theories:

Situational theories of leadership studies revealed that choosing the appropriate style of leadership depends upon the situation will yield more effective results than following same type of leadership style across all the time. Among various situational theories of leadership Fiedler’s contingency model and Hersey and

Blanchard’s Life Cycle Model outlined the importance of situational factors while choosing the appropriate style of leadership.

Fiedler’s model highlighted that task-oriented style of leadership will be more effective in both the extreme situations such as highly favorable and highly unfavorable situations. If the situations are moderately favorable, relationship-oriented style will be more effective.

Hersey and Blanchard model reported that if the employees are highly matured Psychologically and possess job competency, the enforcing delegating style will be more effective. Similarly if the employees are not adequately possessing job competency and very low in psychological maturity, the enforcing directing style will be more effective.

Memo Writing

Memorandum comes from the Latin noun memorandum and has the same root as memorare, memorare translates as to recount, to mention or call to mind.Memos are used within organizations to communicate everything from routine details to complete proposals and reports. Memos are often only a few short paragraphs, but they can be much longer, depending on their purpose. 

Here are some typical uses of memos:

• to inform others about new or changed policy, procedures, organizational details
• to announce meetings, events, changes
• to present decisions, directives, proposals, briefings
• to transmit documents (internal)

Memo Format

• Company and/or department name (without address)

Heading

• To (who gets it)
• From (who sent it)
• Subject (what it’s about)
• Date (when it was sent)  

Body (conveys message)

• Introduction
• Main points

Close

Memo Style

1. Concise: Make your sentences, paragraph, and overall memo as brief and as focused as possible.
2. Clear: Get your purpose straight before you start, then plan what you want to say and in what.
3. Order. Use your memo layout to help your reader (headings, bulleted lists, white space, as appropriate).
4. Direct: Speak directly to your reader, as you would in person or on the phone. Do not pad your ideas with unnecessary details. Think of what questions your reader wants answered, and then answer them.
5. Clean: Reread, revise, copyedit, and proofread.

Memo Structure

Subject Line: Summarizes the main idea; think of it as being preceded by the words "This memo is about."

Introductory paragraph: Quickly orients the reader to what the memo is about.

Give your purpose for writing.

Supply any relevant background information.

Identify any task the memo is related to.

Body: Conveys the information and supporting details relevant to the memo's purpose

Keep paragraphs short and focused; one main idea per paragraph.

Keep sentences tight and informative

Use bullets to list information

Close: End courteously (think of a phone call or face-to-face meeting), stating any expected outcome, action, or other information appropriate to your purpose. For example,

“Please send me your comments and suggestions by January __.”

"Let's meet next week to go over the next stage in the plan."

Organisational Behaviour in the Era of Social Media

Organisational Behaviour is a broad area of management that studies how people act in organisations. Managers can use theories and knowledge of organisational behaviour to improve management practices for effectively working with and influencing employees to attain organisational goals. The field of organisational behaviour has evolved from the scientific study of management during the industrial era, administrative theories of the manager’s role, principles of bureaucracy, and human relations studies of employees ‘needs (Scott, 1992)

As the pace of globalisation and social change quickens, there is a tremendous impact on the internal structure of organisations. While workers are becoming more and more mobile and entrepreneurial, traditional organisation are becoming less appealing. Organisations and leaders of today are focusing on designing environments and systems for work that inspire individuals by taking advantage of the new social, mobile and digital technologies at work. Successful organisations are in constant state of flux in response to their environment, organisations are forced to look at social media technologies as way to market their products and learn about their competitors. The advent of social media has considerably reduced the cost of content creation, distribution and discovery methods. Companies today realise the importance of how social media has changed the way the world communicates.

Organisations are compelled to keep up with the changes that social media has brought on the internal structure of the organisations. Employees are talking online to customers, colleagues and suppliers through various social networks. Experiences, impressions and expectations regarding job, organisation are being shared, liked and commented upon. The speed at which the information gets to transgress the boundaries of the organisation are beyond the control of the organisation.

Social commerce is the new platform for doing business. The future of business is moving towards a direction that explores customer and employee centricity. Driven by technology, mobile and social media it represents an era of transformation. Organisations and its stakeholders have no choice but to take notice and adapt to become socially connected enterprises. Leadership and management need to embrace the change in order to succeed. New policies are needed to guide employees and management on social media best practices. “The Reuters news organization observed that “the distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online and you should assume that your professional and personal social media activity will be treated as one, no matter how hard you try to keep them separate”.

The challenge lies though in the ability to link business objectives, social media strategies, and results that tie to the bottom line. It is the only way to harness the power of social commerce and uncover opportunities to help the organization prosper in the digital era.

Take a look at GE Social Story !!!

Emerging Challenges in the Field of OB

Organisations are deeply affected by the external environment. Organisations need to maintain, monitor and adjust to changes in accordance to the environment in which it functions. External environment keeps changing continuously over the years, however the changes in the past decade and the decades to come, are more profound than others. These changes would require corporate leader and all employees to adjust to new challenges. 

1. Workforce Diversity:

               Diversity includes differences in the psychological characteristics of employees, including personalities, beliefs, values and attitudes.This deep-level diversity Differences in the psychological characteristics of employees, including personalities, beliefs, values and attitudes. isn't as visible as surface-level diversity, but it is evident in a person's decisions, statements and actions.Diversity if managed positively enhances creativity and innovation in organization as well as ensures better decision–making by providing different perspectives on problems. When not managed, diversity leads to increased turnover, heightened inter-personal conflict and more strained communication.Managers must learn to respect diversity and live with diverse behaviours. 

2. Changed Employee Expectation:

               Traditional allurements such as job security, attractive remuneration housing does not attract, retain and motivate today’s workforce. Employees demand empowerment and expect equality of status with the management. Empowerment results in redefining jobs, both from the shop floor as well as the boardrooms. Expectations of equality break up the traditional relationship between employer and employee – top to bottom.

3. Globalization:

             Globalisation Economic, social and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the world. Growing internationalization of business has its impact on people management.Although businesses have traded goods across borders for centuries, the degree of globalisation today is unprecedented because information technology and transportation systems allow a much more intense level of connectivity and interdependence across the planet. 

          Globalisation offers numerous benefits to organisations in terms of larger markets, lower costs, and greater access to knowledge and innovation. At the same time, there is considerable debate about whether globalisation benefits developing nations, and whether it is primarily responsible for increasing work intensification, as well as reducing job security and work–life balance in developed countries. To face this challenge the management must be flexible and pro-active. 

4. Improving Productivity and Quality:

               As organizations are exposed to competition, managers are seriously thinking of improving quality and productivity. In this context managers are implementing programmes like TQM (Total Quality Management) and Re-engineering programmes that requires employee involvement. TQM is a philosophy of management that is inspired by constant attainment of customer satisfaction of all organizational process.

               Re-engineering means radically re-building and redesigning those processes by which we create value for customers.

5. Changing Demographics Of Workforce:

               Combine globalisation with emerging workforce diversity, and add in new information technology. This lead to incredible changes in employment relationships.A few decades ago, most (although not all) employees in India and Pakistan and similar cultures would finish their workday after eight or nine hours and could separate their personal time from the workday.There were no smart phones and no internet connections to keep staff tethered to work on a 24/7 schedule.Most competitors were located in the same country, so they had similar work practices and labour costs. Today, work hours are longer employees experience more work-related stress, and there is growing evidence that family and personal relations are suffering. The emerging issues of this new century is for more work–life balance;- The degree to which a person minimises conflict between work and nonwork demands. Another employment relationship trend brought by means of information technology is virtual work, in which employees use information technology to perform their jobs away from the traditional physical workplace.